CONTRACT LABOR LAW 133 CONVENT something capable of being estimated in money; or some act, whether of per- formance or abstinence, whereby some undoubted advantage, though not capa- ble of being exactly valued, accrues to the party sued. The act contracted for must be neither contrary to written law, nor to public policy ; and it must be bene- ficial to the party seeking either per- formance or compensation, or to some one on whose behalf he gave the con- sideration. There must have been neither fraud (either by concealment or misstatement) nor compulsion on the part of the plaintiff in obtaining the agreement; and fraudulent acts subse- quent to the agreement having reference to it are also sufficient to deprive the guilty party of all right under it. Some circumstances are in equity considered either as conclusive evidence of fraud, or as substantive acts of coercion, which are not strictly of such a nature, and are not so deemed at law. Lastly, as to the form of the agreement: Where it relates to an interest in land of three years' duration or more, or to goods of the value of $50 or upward, unless there be earnest or delivery, or where it is an agreement as surety, or where it is upon marriage as a consideration, it must, by American law, be in writing; though the want of a written instrument may be supplied in equity by partial perform- ance, that is, by acts evidently done in pursuance of the alleged contract. CONTRACT LABOR LAW, an Act of Congress, passed Feb. 26, 1885, and sev- eral times amended. Previous to the passage of this law it had been the prac- tice of large manufacturers to recruit cheap labor in the poorer countries of Europe, even to the extent of paying for the transportation of immigrant workers and their families, this charge being later subtracted from their earn- ings. At first the courts interpreted the provisions of the law as applying only to unskilled labor, but on March 3, 1903, the law was amended, so that it now in- cludes skilled workers as well. Infrac- tion of this law now bears with it a penalty of $1,000 fine for each immi- grant brought into the country illegally by manufacturers or their agents, and a fine of $500 and six months' imprison- ment for the master of a ship who knowingly carries immigrants contrary to the law. CONTRALTO, in music, the highest voice of a male adult, or the lowest of a woman or a boy; called also the Alto, or, when possessed by a man, Cminter- tenor. It is next below the treble and above the tenor, its easy range being from tenor G to treble C. CONTRA VALLATION, LINES OF, in military language, a chain of works round a besieged place to resist the sorties of the garrison. CONTUSION, a bruise or injury of the soft parts of the body, without breach of surface. If the skin be broken, the injury is called a contused wound. See Bruise. CONVALLARIA, a genus of plants, order Liliaceie, tribe Asparacjcse. The C. niajalis is the sweet-scented Lily of the Valley. It is found in woods and cop- pices, especially in a light soil. There are a red-flowered and a double variety in gardens. C. majalis is a valuable cardiac tonic, administered in form of fluid extract or tincture. It has, to a considerable extent, superseded digitalis purpurea for heart disease, it being free, to a large degree, from many objections to which digitalis is obnoxious. CONVENT, the fraternity or sister- hood of an abbey or priory; a commu- nity of religious persons, whether monks or nuns. At first those who withdrew to the desert lived solitarily; the gathering together into a community of all those solitaries who could be brought to toler- ate the restraint of a society regulated by rule was a later movement. In the United States, owing to religious upheavals going on in the Old World, a very large number of the religious con- secrate of the Roman Catholic Church have found refuge. One of the oldest of our commonwealths, that of Maryland, was settled by the Catholics who at an early date laid the foundations of nu- merous convents and monasteries. As the settlements and centers of popula- tion pushed farther in every direction from the Atlantic coast, convents and nunneries were established in every large town. The term convent is here applied almost exclusively to an estab- lishment containing a sodality of nuns, the male religiouses being d^enominated monks and their establishments monas- teries. It is said that the first convent in England was erected by Eadbald at Folkestone in 630, and the first in Scotland at Coldingham in 670. They were numerous during the Middle Ages. Henry VIII. suppressed them, confis- cating their revenues. By the Ro- man Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829 their erection in the United Kingdom was prohibited, but the Act was from the first so much of a dead letter that they were established in various places. In 1875 one was opened at Bournemouth under the auspices of the Ritualist party in the Established Church.
